After a massive earthquake struck Tainan six years ago, the Construction and Planning Agency amended the Seismic Design Specifications and Commentary of the Building Technical Regulations (建築技術規則).
The main aim was to ensure that buildings have a state-of-the-art earthquake-resistant structure to reduce potential damage.
There is a widely held misconception that bulkier and sturdier structures are more earthquake-safe.
However, heavy materials increase the weight of a building, leading to more serious damage in the event that it collapses during an earthquake. Therefore, structural integrity and weight reduction, for example through minimizing decorative elements, are key factors of earthquake safety.
Structural elements, such as beams, need to be strong and sturdy, but for nonstructural elements, such as external walls and internal partitions, lightweight materials should be favored.
Under some circumstances, replacing reinforced concrete with lightweight materials might become increasingly popular for new buildings in earthquake-prone areas. Such materials also have sound and heat insulating properties suitable for energy-efficient buildings. They include recycled materials, such as glass, bricks and tiles, as well as sintered sludge from reservoirs.
Over the past few years, Taiwanese manufacturers have been developing a variety of such high-quality materials, rectifying the misconception about such materials’ inferiority.
Public projects and the construction industry should strongly promote their use, creating a “circular economy” in the construction sector.
Chen Wen-ching is convener of the Recycling Green Building Material Industry Alliance.
Translated by Eddy Chang
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
Within Taiwan’s education system exists a long-standing and deep-rooted culture of falsification. In the past month, a large number of “ghost signatures” — signatures using the names of deceased people — appeared on recall petitions submitted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) against Democratic Progressive Party legislators Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶). An investigation revealed a high degree of overlap between the deceased signatories and the KMT’s membership roster. It also showed that documents had been forged. However, that culture of cheating and fabrication did not just appear out of thin air — it is linked to the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
On April 19, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gave a public speech, his first in about 17 years. During the address at the Ketagalan Institute in Taipei, Chen’s words were vague and his tone was sour. He said that democracy should not be used as an echo chamber for a single politician, that people must be tolerant of other views, that the president should not act as a dictator and that the judiciary should not get involved in politics. He then went on to say that others with different opinions should not be criticized as “XX fellow travelers,” in reference to
RSS